


Love's Labors Lost

by mojitobox



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: BBC Sherlock - Freeform, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-12
Updated: 2013-04-12
Packaged: 2017-12-08 06:00:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757903
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mojitobox/pseuds/mojitobox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bit of a looking back on the relationship between Sebastian Moran and Irene Adler.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love's Labors Lost

She was always transparent to him, just as he was to her.

More similar than they were different and yet the differences were always too much to reconcile. She was a bitch, he was a bastard, end of story.

The hate had sparked and grown and seethed between them and yet there’d been a begrudging respect, on both sides—because though her battlefield was invisible and his was far too obvious, they were both skilled warriors and apt at their trade. He couldn’t do what she did, she couldn’t do what he did. Despite the dislike, they fit together in an effortless grace when Jim called them out on a job and things always went…smoothly.

And it fit that, eventually, with a bit of a nudge, they fell into bed. Controlled and athletic, they’d fuck within a fog of alcohol and without emotion, each one getting what they wanted and waking without regret. 

It was easy.

But then, like always, shit had gotten…fucked.

It was impulse, really. The flirting. The smiling. The way she’d put on her clothes, the way he’d watch. The way he’d take them off again, the way she’d watch. He began to grow accustomed to the feel of silk stockings beneath her hands and she? Oh, she… She arched for his fingers and his lips, let him breathe sonnets and disjointed syllables against the creases of her hips and the dip between her ribs, the underside of her breasts and the sweet-smelling skin just behind her ear.

But impulses only carry us so far and then, without invitation, came feeling. Secret feelings that he hid deep within himself, quiet nothings he breathed in words made from sand against her hair as they slept—but she? She was cold and she was beautiful and he was lost and drug-ridden and so very, very close to nothing.

They say the quickest way to turn a man into a boy is to show him a woman in power, but it was only with a gun in his hand and orders buzzed in his ear that Sebastian felt like anything more than an infant.

Irene Adler.

She took that away.

The woman had stripped him bare and wrung him out and she never even batted an eye. Only years later would Sebastian realize that she never knew. How could she know? He never said.

But there, in the darkness, as she finally let herself sleep, he’d whispered love into her hair and tried to burn it into her flesh, tried to crawl inside the shell of the heart that she kept so well-hidden and stay. He’d wanted her and he’d kept it secret and he’d stolen moments and he’d kept her close. Without the blinding light of day, he’d finally felt like enough, finally felt like something more. Like maybe he could keep her safe, like maybe he could draw curtains over all of the mirrors and kiss the scars from her hips, live inside her veins and draw the poison out but he couldn’t. He couldn’t and he didn’t and eventually, slowly, he’d given up.

Because, no. No, it wasn’t their differences that kept them apart. It was their similarities.

Years later, he’d understand. He’d know that they’d both been too stupid to speak up, to scared to say more than, “Let’s fuck.” He’d get that, there in the dark, while he’d tangled secret words against the curls at the base of her neck, she’d closed her eyes and dreamt herself a tiger that wouldn’t bite.

But the thoughts come too late and Jim burns so bright that there’s nowhere to whisper or deny. Sebastian is split open an exposed, man and child in one. He’s taken in and kept by keeping, loved by hating and the sex is not just fucking. He’s an owned man, a man who owns, and he’s finally able to see the puzzle that his piece has fitted into.

Still, there are days when he looks at her and smiles, thinking back to the way things were.

She was always transparent to him, just as he was to her.

And sometimes, just some times, she really does believe him when he says, “Renee. It’s good to see you.”

And sometimes, just sometimes, she smiles.

_It’s good to see you, too._


End file.
